whos at fault there? The rope floats, was about 20 feet from my boat and some small john boat comes flying by right next to my boat and snags the rope and handle. There was probably 1000 yards of water way for him to go but he chose to come with in 20 feet of me while a rider was about to get in the water. Anyone know the laws for that?

Yes, that law would be the "Do that again and Im gonna drop my 3 500lb fat sacks in your stupid little john boat and tow you in, but OOOHHH Im sorry, you just ran over my towrope so I cant help you from not sinking and you better start swimming - law."

Tim, I agree but it was COLD, I might have seen 20 boats in 4 hours and remember, Im in a river and its a HALF MILE WIDE, Why come with in 20' of my boat when you have all that water. I'm not in the channel, im by the shore.

ron, i can sympathize for sure, and it was def wrong of him to come near your boat. was it on the st johns? because a jon boat came real close to us once out there! could be a trend.

anyhow, if you can track him down you might be able to get money out of him if you feel that it was his fault. the laws are very general in FL and I don't even think there is a distance law that I have read in the boating regulations books. so i don't think you would have great luck trying to get johnny law to get him to pay up. especially since it is very difficult to see a rope in the water as he is cruising by. let us know what happens

yeah I realize I'm not going to get paid back for it and at the time it happen, I chased him down all right, and made him wait while I Tried to call the marine patrol to find out but I couldnt get the number from 411 for some reason. I just wanted to know if there is a set law and.........

Do all of you guys pull in your rope every single time someone gets in the boat and someone else gets out?

bottom line- if you didnt track the idiot down who ran over your rope and beat the hell out of em then u got some issues to work out. hes lucky you didnt have a skier in the water, or if you did that they didnt get run over. i would have chased the idiot down, called the lifegaurd over and had them writtem up. then made them reimburse me for the cost of the rope. and if he wouldnt pay up, id sink his boat.

In CA I believe the the flag does have to be up even w/just the rope out. If I had my flag up then I'd make the other boat pay. If I didn't have it up then I guess it would depend on how close the person came, but it does sound kinda unreasonable that they other boat came so close. If the other boat wasn't breaking any FL law then it be hard to make someone else pay, however impolite their driving behavior.

Oh, and we pull the rope in every time. It only takes once to forget about the rope after it floats around the boat and you run over it. It's just one less thing for me to worry about.

I believe in California you are supposed to have a flag up if you have a rope or boarder in the water. Also I think in CA within 100 feet of a boat with flag out you have to reduce speed to 5mph. Now a boat with no flag out, then I still think a boat can not pass at high speed within 20 feet. It's probably more of a judgement call by the marine patrol on that one, falls more under the usafe operating catagory.

Yeah we always pull the rope in between boarders. For one thing it makes it easier for the next boarder to get set up, they just jump in with the handle and your good to go.

Yeah, we pull the rope in too...delta or lake (but we probably developed the habit from riding on the delta). Our riders jump in while holding the handle and the crew is responsible for assisting with the handle and board retrieval (it keeps the crew involved).

I had a guy run over my rope one day(while I was turning to pick up a fallen rider), and he had the nerve to try to bitch at me for "possible messing up his prop" Yeah that was almost a fight, but he took off while I was trying to get the rider in the boat to go have a closer discussion with him.

So yes anytime there is another boat out even kinda close to us we pull the rope in.

To all you who say you would make them pay for it. How are you going to get the money out of them? I mean most people around here would not even believe a rope cost $80, and the handle even more.

If I run over a fisherman's lines when he is trolling (line length within reason), it would be my fault. I should be paying enough attention to the boats that close to me to notice if someone, flag or not, has a line out. On the same note, if someone runs over my wakeboard rope while it's in the water and attached to my boat, it's absolutely their fault. Now while I would be like to beat this john boat driver like a circus monkey, it's probably best to take down some registration numbers and convey to this idiot that paying you for the rope will be cheaper than paying fines for driving too close and reckless endangerment of persons (just make something up). Don't remind him, but you have proof of the maximum length he was from your boat. When he tells Johnny Law that he was at least 200' feet from your boat, just hand the cop your 38' section of remaining rope. That should settle things quickly.

What Matt said, if your fishing you wouldnt want someone coming that close. Ive only had one rope run over and it was from a (female) riding a waverunner and just plain had no clue. Her and another guy were riding stupid close to me while pulling a boarder. She then proceeds to cirlce real close and sucks my rope into the intake grate. I NEVER EVER pull the rope in till everyones done riding, that would be even more salt in mt boat then i already dont like. Yoiu need to keep an eye on everything going on around you and be ready to act, even still problems come up like what happened to Ron. Like others said what if there was a rider in the water or just someone under the surface swimming??

I think I'd be pulling the rope it and at least coiliing it on the platform. I haven't had my rope run over, but while riding in a classic Mahogany Chris Craft of my friends, some Jackass on one of those Jet bikes hooked the rope in the front ski. It tore the ski rope but not before tearing a cleat from the deck and flinging it God-knows-where. I'm a little more careful about how much rope is in the water and where everyone around me is while it is there. Just pays to be careful. At least then you never have to worry about replacing a rope or anyone in your crew getting injured.

There was an article in the local rag last summer about how dangerous the waterways are getting. One of the pictures showed a wake boat that had been pulled over onto its side by another boat that snagged the rope. They pulled the boat to the shallow area before it sank. The part that caught my attention was that there was a toddler in the boat. No one was hurt, thankfully.